Tom Teach’s commitment to Be The Match® started when his 4-year old grandson, Ben, was diagnosed with ALL and AML. Ben received a bone marrow transplant and for nearly six beautiful months after, Ben laughed and smiled as a cancer-free little boy. But when Ben’s leukemia returned, nothing could be done. Tom and his family said goodbye to their sweet boy in February 2015.

Today, Tom is a dedicated member of the Foundation’s board and a passionate champion of Be The Match. Tom is a Navy veteran and he and his son spoke at the Naval Academy and with the help of the Department of Defense, recruited more than 700 potential donors to the Be The Match Registry®. Tom continues to participate in leadership roles at registry drives at the Naval Academy. As a Notre Dame alum, he utilizes his contacts to raise awareness and help recruit registry members at Notre Dame games. He has also extended his efforts to Goshen College and Bethel College.

In addition, Tom has become a tireless fundraiser for Be The Match Foundation®. He helps acquire key sponsorships for the Be The Match Walk+Run event and participates with his friends and family as “Team Ben.” Over the past three years, his team has raised more than $165,000 for the Chicago Be The Match Walk+Run.

“Tom’s service to Be The Match is an excellent example of true volunteerism,” says Nicole Kersting, Senior Development Manager at Be The Match. “In addition to his recruitment and fundraising efforts, he is willing to step in with any in-kind request large or small through his foam packaging company.”

The impact Tom continues to have on patients and their loved ones is huge. Due to Tom’s efforts, more patients are able to get a second chance at life.

At 9 months old, Emilie Meza was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia and her family was told that her best hope for a cure would be a marrow transplant. She is now 1 year old, and has not found a match on Be The Match Registry®. After searching for a marrow match, her doctors and family made the tough decision for her to receive a haploidentical marrow transplant from her father, Eduardo Meza. A haploidentical transplant comes with extra precautions, as this means he was a half-match to Emilie, not a full match. While recent outcomes of haploidentical transplant are promising, many marrow transplant doctors prefer a fully matched adult marrow donor over a haploidentical marrow donor. But this was the best option available for Emilie.

Emilie’s family continues to encourage others to join the registry and support Be The Match® so that other families don’t need to make the tough decisions they have regarding alternative treatment options. Emilie received her marrow transplant from her father, and is now continuing to recover with her family and doctors by her side. You can get frequent updates on her recovery from their facebook page, Emily Meza’s Bone Marrow Transplant Journey.

Please consider signing up for a monthly financial gift to help patients like Emilie find a fully matched donor on Be The Match Registry. Your financial support helps add more potential marrow donors to the registry, fund advancements in marrow transplant science and provide relief to patients and families facing financial barriers to treatment.

37 seasons. 256 wins. One national championship. More than 70,000 potential lives saved. These are just a few accomplishments of Andy Talley, former head football coach of the Villanova Wildcats. Talley retired from coaching following the 2016 season, but his commitment to saving the lives of those suffering from blood cancer continues long after he walked off the field for the last time.

Answering the Call

In 1992, Talley was listening to the radio when he heard a fact that would change his life: Every three minutes, someone is diagnosed with a blood cancer, like leukemia or lymphoma. For tens of thousands of these patients a bone marrow or umbilical cord blood transplant could be their cure – yet only half receive the potentially life-saving transplant they need.

“When I heard the devastating odds of those in need of a transplant, I immediately knew that I had to do something,” Talley said. “With 90 young healthy football players on my team and the power of collegiate football behind me, I knew I could recruit donors and hopefully make an impact.”

Coach Talley presenting Be The Match with a $125,000 check

Recognizing that his young and healthy football players had the potential to become marrow donors, and use their clout on campus to recruit others to join, Talley set out to educate his players and the community about the opportunity to save the life of a stranger by joining the Be The Match Registry®.

A Team of Ideal Donors

Talley had an important audience on his team. 18-24 year old males are the ideal bone marrow donors. In general, the younger a person is, the healthier their marrow and because men tend to have more body mass than women, they have more marrow to give.

Additionally, since patients in need of a transplant are more likely to match someone who shares their ethnic ancestry, the diversity of his team played an important role, too. Currently, African American patients have the lowest odds of finding a match compared to all other populations and make up only 6 percent of the registry, a fact that stunned Talley.

Beyond recruiting his players to join the registry, Talley began hosting donor registry drives on the Villanova campus and raising funds to cover the costs of tissue typing. At every drive, Talley emphasized how easy it is to join the registry and potentially save a life—all it takes is a swab of cheek cells; no blood is drawn. In 2008, Be The Match® approached Talley with the idea of working together to expand his on-campus drive efforts and the “Get in the Game. Save a Life” (GITG) initiative was born.

Spreading the Word

Since then, more than 75 other college football programs have enlisted to participate in GITG, which has led to nearly 71,000 new registry members, more than 300 of whom have matched with and donated to a patient in need. One of these donors is Chicago Cub and former Villanova football and baseball star, Matt Szczur, whose donation story was recently featured by ESPN.

In addition to his involvement with the GITG initiative, Talley also runs The Andy Talley Bone Marrow Foundation which has donated more than $375,000 to assist with covering the costs of adding new members to the registry.

The Commitment Continues

It’s important to Coach Talley that his mission of getting more committed donors on the registry doesn’t retire when he does. His successor, Assistant Coach Mike Ferrante, sits on The Board of Directors of The Andy Talley Bone Marrow Foundation, and he will continue to share the message that anyone can save a life. And Talley plans to deepen his involvement supporting this worthy cause after his final season with the Wildcats.

“With a lot more time on my hands, I am looking forward to increasing awareness and recruiting a ton of coaches to join our Get in the Game initiative,” said Talley. “It is my dream to have every college football team nationwide host a drive and join our passion of saving lives.”

“Never. Ever. Givvvve up! Never. Ever. Givvvve up!” This is the cheer of smiling, bubbling, 4-year-old Jade. What is she cheering for? Courage to beat her cancer.

A fighter from day one, Jade’s journey began with unexplained episodes of limping, joint pain and fever. An otherwise healthy toddler who could run circles around her older brother, Jade’s parents, Jaytoeand Taneika, were puzzled. Multiple visits to the emergency room and they still didn’t know what was wrong.

On January 5, 2012, a few days after celebrating the New Year, Jade was admitted to the hospital for a persistent eye infection. Trusting their gut, they asked for additional tests. “We figured while we were there, why not get to the bottom of it once and for all,” says Taneika.

Eager to help, Jade’s doctors listened to the list of symptoms and explored many options. Ultimately, the news was devastating. Little Jade had cancer—acute myeloid leukemia (AML). “We were floored. It was hard to swallow because she wasn’t even two years old yet. We were still getting to know her and watch her grow, but hearing this diagnosis almost felt like a death sentence,” says Taneika.

Eight months and five rounds of chemo later, Jade was in remission. Like any parent, Taneika was overjoyed, but she was worried that it was too good to be true. They filled their days with fun activities like visiting museums, baking cookies, painting and dancing to Jade’s favorite tunes. “Our family had a renewed sense of living life to the fullest, but I always felt like I was looking over my shoulder.”

When Halloween arrived, Jade was old enough to help pick her costume. “She absolutely loves dressing up and equally loves ‘saving the day,’” says Taneika. “Familiar with traditional princess costumes she was soooo excited to see the warrior princess Wonder Woman costume.” Completely thrilled, Jade declared herself “Super Wonder Jade” with powers to fight the “bad guy cells.” The nickname stuck and Jade continues to call herself this today.

Relapse

On March 19, 2014, just a few weeks shy of celebrating Jade’s fourth birthday, her leukemia resurfaced. “It was harder to hear the news the second time. We thought we had it beat, but we didn’t,” says Taneika.

Immediately, Jade’s doctor’s explained that a marrow transplant was her best shot for a cure. “They told us that relapsed AML was more difficult to treat. They also told us the likelihood of finding an unrelated donor was very low because of how uniquely made Jade is, because of our ethnic backgrounds.” The frightened family knew it would be a tough battle, but brave Jade took the news with grace.

“Jade returned to the oncology floor like she owned the place,” says Taneika. “Wandering the halls, serenading the staff at the nurses’ station, and quickly finding her place in the art room.” But, despite the familiarity, things were different. Jade was a big girl now. “The halls were the same, the staff was the same, but Jade had the ability to ask questions like: Why are we here? When are we going home? Why can’t my friends come over?”

Thankfully, Jade’s cheerful nature quickly won over and she settled into her routine filled with activities such as singing “Let It Go” as she said good bye to her hair, swishing “magic mouthwash” to lessen the pain of mouth sores and earning more than 500 beads of courage—one for every procedure.

In her journal, Taneika wrote, “Jade was so playful, so brave and so strong throughout her treatment, even after a rough chemo session. And she would just say, ‘I’m smiling for me.’ We absolutely believe that her spirit and attitude helped her heal… helped strengthen our faith and our resolve that she would be cured.”

Re-birthday

Finally, on July 3, after months of searching, transplant day arrived. Unable to find an adult donor, doctors located a 5 out of 6 cord blood match.

Pronounced Jade’s “re-birthday,” the special day was filled with celebration banners, cupcakes and Jade’s favorite thing in the world—music. “She proceeded to dance for an hour straight, grabbing our hands and pulling us to the dance floor one by one,” says Taneika.

Exhausted, Jade finally fell asleep as nurses hooked up an IV pole for her new, life-giving cells to drip slowly into her body. “When you hear the word ‘transplant’ you think surgery…sedation…but it was not like that at all,” says Taneika. “The whole process took less than two hours.”

The Jade Parade

Twenty-four days after transplant, Jade was allowed to make her first trip home. Having seen parade-like, end-of-treatment celebrations before, Taneika was overcome with emotion as Jade exchanged her Beads of Courage for her requisite sunglasses, high filtration mask and tiara. “She went out in style, leading the staff decisively toward the elevator cheering, ‘I’m brave, I’m strong, I’m ready for whatever comes along,’” says Taneika.

By day 29, Jade was 100% donor cells. She did experience some early setbacks with graft versus host disease (GVHD) and liver damage, but Jade is currently healthy, happy and cancer free.

Forever Thankful

Taneika is at a loss for words when thinking about the gift their family received. “Thank you seems inadequate… We wish there were words beautiful or accurate enough to fully express our gratitude for this incredible gift — for saving our daughter’s life and keeping our family whole,” she says.

“With each milestone that Jade reaches, every smile that she cracks, each hug that she shares with us, we are eternally grateful to the mother who made this possible when she donated her newborn baby’s cord blood, to Be The Match for facilitating her gift, and to Jade’s medical team for their incredible support. We thank God for them all. We will certainly be reflecting on that this holiday season and hoping not only for Jade’s continued remission, health and overall rock-stardom, but also for a match and a cure for all of the parents, grandparents and children who need it.”

The family is also grateful people like you who support Be The Match by making a financial gift. “Thank you for helping to give meaning to Jade’s journey. We often ask and wonder, ‘Why Jade? Why did this happen to our sweet girl?’ There will never be a satisfactory answer to those questions, but we are so heartened that her story, her spirit inspired you to make a gift that will help heal another family like ours that has been turned upside down by cancer.”

The Delta SkyMiles® program has chosen Be The Match Foundation® as one of its 2010 SkyWish Charity Partners. That means when you fly Delta, you can donate your miles to Be The Match Foundation.

Be The Match Foundation will use your donated miles to fly marrow transplant patients and their caregivers to transplant centers free of charge. This service provides tremendous relief to families burdened by treatment costs.

How to donate miles
Send a request to the SkyMiles program including your name, SkyMiles number, SkyWish charity name, donation amount and telephone number. Donations must be a minimum of 1,000 miles and are not tax-deductible for SkyMiles members or Delta.

Patients are more likely to find donor matches within their own racial or ethnic background. For African Americans specifically, there is more genetic diversity than any other race. However, the number of black donors on the national registry is still low.

African Ancestry is partnering with Be The Match to drive awareness and registration among the black community for this important cause. Learn more about African Ancestry and how they can trace your ancestry back to a specific present-day African country of origin.

Be The Match Foundationis the new name of The Marrow Foundation. Their work with families, corporations and other partners has raised millions of dollars for patients in need. With your support, Be The Match Foundation will continue to attract, engage and motivate people who want to save a life.

CIMBTR Is a research partner of the National Marrow Donor Program committed to increasing application and access to cellular transplant therapy, as well as improving outcomes. The ultimate goal is to help more transplant patients live longer, healthier lives.

Rick Hendrick is best known for his NASCAR championships and Nextel Cup Series victories as the owner of Hendrick Motorsports. In 1996, his winning ways broadened beyond the Winner’s Circle when he became a champion for people facing life-threatening diseases that can be treated with a bone marrow transplant.

Hendrick Marrow Program of the Be The Match Foundation helps secure private resources to support the work of the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) and its Be The Match Registry.

Since 1997, the Hendrick Marrow Program has raised more than $7 million to recruit new members to the marrow donor registry and help patients pay for transplant-related costs.

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About Us

For people with life-threatening blood cancers like leukemia and lymphoma or other diseases, a cure exists. Be The Match connects patients with their donor match for a life-saving marrow or umbilical cord blood transplant.